Immigration Law

TREASUREY SECRETARY DESIGNEE HAS ILLEGAL NANNY PROBLEM

By Greg Siskind

Tim Geithner joins a long list of nominees over the last two decades who have seen their nominations jeopardized over having employed an illegally present immigrant. The most famous case involved President Clinton's first nomination for Attorney General, Zoe Baird. Ms. Baird's nomination was derailed after it was learned that she had hired an illegally present immigrant as a nanny to her children. Clinton's next nominee Kimba Wood had her nominationed scuttled over the same issue (except that unlike Baird, Wood paid taxes on her nanny's wages). The childless Janet Reno was the third choice, though coming from South Florida, I suppose the odds of her having employed a household worker with immigration problems might have been high as well.

A few months after the Wood and Baird debacles, Clinton nominated Judge Stephen Breyer for a US Supreme Court Justice seat and it was learned that he too had employed an illegally present immigrant in his household. But by this point, Congress was starting to figure out that if this was now the standard for holding high office, the pool of qualified candidates would shrink dramatically. So Breyer was confirmed.

The issue didn't pop up again until the Bush Administration's nomination of Linda Chavez to be the Secretary of Labor during his first term in office. Her nomination collapsed when it was learned she had an illegally present immigrant living in her home.

And there are several others where the issue has arisen. It does seem that one distinguishing point in teh various cases is whether the nominee would have any direct responsibility for administering immigration laws. At the time of the Baird and Wood nominations, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was in the Department of Justice, the department overseen by the Attorney General. And Chavez probably faced more problems because the Labor Department plays an important role in employment-based immigrant visa processing.

And that is why I think Geithner will be able to get past the nanny question. Were we talking about DHS Secretary, I think the story might be different.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).